Discover Casa do Conto at Rua da Boavista, in the urban circuit between Casa da Música (Oporto’s Concert Hall) and the art galleries street (Rua Miguel Bombarda), on the way to Oporto’s Downtown, and close to the metro stations of Lapa and Carolina Michaelis.

At the door of Casa do Conto, at nº 703, it is written “it was nº 513”; The House rises, so, again and again, with the same facade and its iron doorknocker, evoking those urban memories that should not be forgotten.

The arts and residence Casa do Conto (House of Tales) is a charming building in the emerging Cedofeita area in central Porto. It is the result of a restoration project to convert a 19th-century bourgeois home to host demanding and discerning guests in an atmosphere of striking cultural imagery. An innovative and exclusive project which could only have been possible in the urban setting of a city.

Casa do Conto (House of Tales) was born three years ago, giving rise to a unique project within the Oporto’s growing hotel industry. Unfortunately a fatal fire in March 2009 interrupted this process but not the collective will to complete the project. And many were those who generously honored and supported it.

The project strategy is centred on the restoration of the entire building, recovering its original architectural value. This reflects the surgical nature of the design plan, adapting the new interventions to the architectural language already present in the house.

The planned layout includes, as was formerly the case, an entrance hall with vertical access to every floor of the building. In the the focal point of the building, a skylight was designed to capture light from the outside, and enable visual contact with the sky.

The house’s social areas (reception, lounge, library, dining room and garden) are arranged throughout floors 0 and -1, with the upper floors reserved for the private rooms. Every room is different, having been furnished with vintage furniture and other design items.

This rare House rises now fully rehabilitated, once again seeking its exclusivity within the usual Oporto’s hotel offer, which is becoming gradually generic and impersonal.

Casa do Conto embodies a unique story of life, which is, after all, the history of the city itself. The House highlights Oporto’s XIX century domestic architecture, solemn and vertical, carved by the scars of a time that mediates its decline and rebirth, the memory of the past and the desire for the future, the granite stone of the old facades and the new concrete of staircases and ceilings. It is, indeed, a kind of “fossil architecture” that comes to life.

Graved by various texts, in low relief, covering six separate rooms, these ceilings narrate the changes undergone by the concept of “house” and of this house in particular.

Created by different authors, related to the city and its architecture – Filipa Leal, Alvaro Domingues, Jorge Figueira, André Tavares, Nuno Grande and Pedro Bandeira – the six “tales” were spatially distributed by the architects collective Pedra Líquida (Liquid Stone) – authors of the renewal project -, and graphically imagined by the creative designers of R2 Design.

The solution, which marks the difference in personality of each space has already been awarded with the 2011 SEGD Design Awards, and has received the Golden Award of the European Design Awards in the category “Signs & Displays”.

Casa do Conto offers an innovative hotel concept – arts & residence – providing a personalized style of residence for guests who wish to combine resting with the enjoyment of Oporto’s cultural offer, or for those who wish to create, display or even debate art working.

For this reason, Casa do Conto offers a regular schedule of cultural events, involving different artists, designers, curators, groups and art institutions. For the opening period, Casa do Conto established partnership with the art gallery and bookshop Inc. based in Oporto.